This story was originally published by WIPAC
UW–Madison physics professor Justin Vandenbroucke was selected as one of 23 awardees of the Vilas Associates Competition. The announcement was made recently by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education.
The competition recognizes “new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance,” and is open to tenure-track assistant professors and tenured faculty within 20 years of their tenure date. Recipients are chosen based on their research proposals, with winners receiving up to two-ninths of research salary support for the summers of 2023 and 2024, in addition to a $12,500 flexible research fund each of the fiscal years.
“This award will enable my group and me to build on our recent work by branching out in new directions,” says Vandenbroucke. “I’m grateful for the support we receive from the university, the physics department, and WIPAC.”
Vandenbroucke’s work at WIPAC includes research in neutrino astronomy, gamma-ray astronomy, and cosmic rays. Vandenbroucke leads the Distributed Electronic Cosmic-Ray Observatory (DECO), a citizen science project that allows users around the world to detect cosmic rays and other energetic particles with their cell phones and tablets. Vandenbroucke is a member of the IceCube Collaboration and the Cherenkov Telescope Array consortium and an affiliate member of the Fermi LAT collaboration.
The award will be used to support research in multimessenger astrophysics using IceCube and the IceCube Upgrade, now underway, in combination with gravitational wave and gamma-ray observations to discover and study cosmic particle accelerators.
The award is funded by the William F. Vilas Trust Estate.